Jade Empire

[Dyne]

It's funny you should say that, because a choose your own adventure book is exactly what KotOR felt like to me - "If you want to find out what the angry purple guy did just before a meteor hit his spaceship, turn to page 57!" "To kill the innocent townsperson, turn to page 103. To give them all your money and offer to clean their house and raise their children for them, turn to page 28!"

i agree with this. the KotOR games bored me to tears. at least in Jade Empire the combat was a little more spiced up so i felt like iw as actually interacting with the game.

[StriderKyo]

It struck a really good balance between telling a story, letting you play an actual role, and allowing the story to branch. In JRPGs you're making sure a bunch of uncontrollable characters survive battles against fierce woodland creatures. Not that it's bad in its own right, but it's hardly playing a role.

No, it isn't at all unless you have an incredibly active imagination. I giuess if you want to get technical they're like story games or something. I don't especially want to get technical.

Opposite here. In KOTOR I was often setting up battles with characters spaced out to specifically throw off enemies, setting up grenade/force power combos to keep them off-balance or suck them dry.

Okay, but the game didn't require you to at all, at least up to the point I was at - I'd cleared 3 of the 4 planets you can choose from. The combat literally felt like Diablo for me - click on enemies,. watch guys fight, press heal button when necessary.

In FFX I generally just selected attack over and over except in the cases where a monster was strong to attack and weak to a specific spell so I'd just select their weakness over and over and skip the turns of the people that didn't have that spell. Oh yeah, once in a while I'd have to switch in someone like Wakka if swords didn't reach.

Come on - unless you were massively powerful from level grinding or finding those cheeseball battle arena items the game wasn't easy enough for that. You were always struggling to keep your spell casters alive against bosses or powerful enemies.

Most of the random battles were time wasters, which holds true for almost every rpg ever not named 7th Saga. And it's true you could choose a party and stick with it, only using other characters in certain circumstances (I stuck with a four man rotation - I messed up Kimahri by trying to make him a spellcaster, which he's useless at, and never played blitzball so Wakka sucked - I only subbed in Rikku to steal stuff and use Al Bhed potions). But I found most serious fights had me really paying attention to each action in each turn, especially the last third of the game. In KotOR I died a couple of times (like, 4), but passing the parts I died at never involved any kind of inventive strategy on my part.

[Omni]

...Is probably good but hideously ugly and I'd rather finish Planescape Torment one of these years instead.

Yes, I am a graphics whore in that manner but I cannot stand pre-rendered graphics, especially western "We have no clue what good visual direction is and our animation is shit" pre-rendered graphics. Torment makes up for it with really good writing but what I played of BGII (the first twenty minutes, yes, I know that's nothing) did not intrigue me in the slightest on any level.

I tried playing Planescape again 2 weeks ago and couldn't because I was bored to death.

Good writing, but I was basically sitting at my computer and reading a book with a little interaction involved. I guess I didn't like that combat was put on such a back burner.

Yeah, Baldur's Gate just has a special place in my heart and every now and again I have to pimp it for absolutely no reason. I try to do it in somewhat appropriate places, though.

I agree with StriderKyo that the battle systems of some JRPGs are hideously underrated and can surpass even some of the best western PC RPGs. It might not happen often, but it can. People usually ignore it, though.

[MechDeus]

No, it isn't at all unless you have an incredibly active imagination. I giuess if you want to get technical they're like story games or something. I don't especially want to get technical.

Which part, the balance of KOTOR or the JRPGs?

The combat literally felt like Diablo for me - click on enemies,. watch guys fight, press heal button when necessary.

Diablo: Depends on your class and difficulty. If you're just a warrior on normal then, yeah, they don't offer too much, but that won't even come close to doing anything besides getting you killed in about two seconds as a sorceress on hell. I know people that could absolutely destroy that point on Diablo, but they're crazy about it. Let's also not forget the incredibly cheap (thankfully rare) lightning enchant enemies that are an instant kill no matter who you are at any level if you make the mistake of attacking them. And if you're playing on hardcore... kiss all your work goodbye. There's reasons why I never touched that mode, that game is absolutely insane. [/tangent]

Yes, they do often make their enemies too easy because they allow you to go to places in any order, but I'd rather that instead of making it challenging like it was DBZ ("My power is one million!" "Oh... oh yeah?" *fights some random battles* "My power level is two million!" "Crap! Well, I'll pull this random beam out of my ass that hits everyone for assloads more then every other attack of mine put together!")

Come on - unless you were massively powerful from level grinding or finding those cheeseball battle arena items the game wasn't easy enough for that. You were always struggling to keep your spell casters alive against bosses or powerful enemies.

No I didn't and no I wasn't. I think I did some levelling up but it wasn't much. I only made it through about half the game before I couldn't stand the characters anymore (except Wakka, they did a really good job with him), but it was pretty much scan for weakness, fight every enemy of that type the same way but be sure to switch spells when their color is different. Repeat as nessecary.

Most of the random battles were time wasters, which holds true for almost every rpg ever not named 7th Saga.

Yep, and that's why I stopped playing Digitial Devil Saga. It was pretty damn cool and I was really enjoying the game but I refuse to deal with random battle bullshit in this day and age. We are beyond that.

But I found most serious fights had me really paying attention to each action in each turn, especially the last third of the game. In KotOR I died a couple of times (like, 4), but passing the parts I died at never involved any kind of inventive strategy on my part.

My other point was what you already mentioned: that you could just level up and totally forgo any strategy whatsoever. In fact, that's generally the only way to beat the optional bosses in most Square games (aside from SaGa Frontier's ultra-uber-spell I discovered which was so powerful it broke the game like it was SO3). Most every JRPG comes complete with weapons and levelling up that allow you to work around the system if you never want to comply, it's a way of allowing people that don't mind wasting time grinding (which can be beautifully mindless) without ever thinking to blow through a game.

I agree with StriderKyo that the battle systems of some JRPGs are hideously underrated and can surpass even some of the best western PC RPGs. It might not happen often, but it can. People usually ignore it, though.

Vagrant Story (for as much as I had my problems with I still respect because I can see what they did) has probably the best battle system of all the differing RPGs. I enjoyed FFXs because it was really quick and allowed me to breeze through, especially after the far superior in every other way but really plodding battles of FFIX. I probably would have been more impressed with FFXs if I hadn't played BoFIV beforehand, since Square stole the major aspect of the battle system from them (character switching). The tricks you could do during boss battles was pretty cool, though.

One of the things I adore about KOTOR and JE is that there are very few unnessecary battles. If you're fighting a series of random nobody enemies then you're either storming an enemy fortress or something important is going on, it's not "Oh, I'm being attacked by the fifteen billion soldiers that just happen to be wandering fields for no reason in huge armored gears killing everything in sight, occasionally working alongside untamed wolves that came along for no reason and all just want to kill me." Generally every fight is there for a reason or there's at least an explanation (a decent one, I might add) or it just plain makes sense. Decent battle system or not, I give them MAJOR props for only trotting it out when it needs to be and they give you the option to talk your past some of the fights.

[animegirl]

What I don't understand is people complaining about random battles. Do you want all RPGs to be action-RPGs? Are random battles alright if they occur on the screen instead of loading to another screen? RPGs would be just interactive novels if they didn't have random battles, there would be no meat to the gameplay.

I agree with StriderKyo that the battle systems of some JRPGs are hideously underrated and can surpass even some of the best western PC RPGs. It might not happen often, but it can. People usually ignore it, though.

Tales of Symphonia is a perfect example of this. That battle system was chaotic, frenetic and fun as hell.

[NeoZeedeater]

How does being able to see enemies instead of having them magically appear turn an RPG into an ARPG? Random battles were invented because of 8-bit hardware limitations. There's no excuse for them today.

[animegirl]

How does being able to see enemies instead of having them magically appear turn an RPG into an ARPG? Random battles were invented because of 8-bit hardware limitations. There's no excuse for them today.

I was referring more to the turn-based aspect of random battles. I don't mind random battles, but I like when the enemies are on screen and can be avoided, it give you some choice in the matter.

[Opaque]

I finished the game following the way of the open palm in about 15 hours or so. I did every little side quest imaginable, so I'm kind of curious how people go over 30 hours out of this.

I'm also about 3 hours into a game following the way of the closed fist. This is the first game with a dark and light side where I actually feel like playing through the second time. I think it's becuase from what I can see the second half of the game can't be even remotely similer between the two playing styles. Not to mention the combat kicks the fuck out of KOTOR and the story destroys Fable.

GOTY.

[StriderKyo]

How does being able to see enemies instead of having them magically appear turn an RPG into an ARPG? Random battles were invented because of 8-bit hardware limitations. There's no excuse for them today.

Random battles have existed in rpgs from the very start, right from Wizardry & Ultima. In fact, they existed in pen & paper rpgs from the start - I remember the dungeon master rolling the dice to see if you'd meet a random slime or goblin all the time when I was a kid. They've always been an integral part of the genre - videogames just inherited it from Dungeons & Dragons.

Without random battles, experience systems pretty much just become a formality. Unless you're playing a completely alinear game you just end up with however many experience points the developer decides you'll have at a given point.

I don't understand why people have suddenly decided turn based battle systems or random battles are signs of archaic technology, rather than conscious design elements with their own inherent strengths.

Which part, the balance of KOTOR or the JRPGs?

I was referring to you last sentence before my response, talking about how jrpgs don't actually involve role playing unless you have an active imagination.

No I didn't and no I wasn't. I think I did some levelling up but it wasn't much. I only made it through about half the game before I couldn't stand the characters anymore (except Wakka, they did a really good job with him), but it was pretty much scan for weakness, fight every enemy of that type the same way but be sure to switch spells when their color is different. Repeat as nessecary.

You had a very different experience with the game than I did - I remember a whole lot of enemies with spells that attacked my whole party and could take out most members in two hits. It was often a struggle squeezing in attacks between healing and buff/debuff turns.

[Opaque]

Without random battles, experience systems pretty much just become a formality. Unless you're playing a completely alinear game you just end up with however many experience points the developer decides you'll have at a given point.

I agree, one of the few problems I had with Jade Empire was that it was pretty much predetermined how much experience you could have at any given time. Of course you could have more or less than average by doing or not doing all the available sidequest (honestly though, for doing everyside quest and reading every book and scroll, you really only gain one or two levels when all is said and done), but the battles, and how many enemies there were in an area more or less determined how much experience you had.

I don't think a random battle system is what I would have wanted to correct that, just enemy respawns. It would be nice to have some strong palace guards always available if you backtrack through the palace (or just leave a room and come back). The only place that had anything like that was the Necropolus, but when it takes 17,000exp to level up and the ghosts that spawn there give you 28exp, there's little motivation to spend nine hours killing them to gain a level.